Page 36 - Winter2009

This is why people came up with alkalinizing carbohydrate consumption, and then you are in big trouble.
diets for cancer patients; but these diets rarely
work in the long run because your body doesn’t DON’T WORK FOR MONEY!
actually need more alkaline foods; what it needs Steiner once said that for mankind to make progress, men and women
is more fat. What you need to do is change your would need to learn not to work for money. Of course you want to be paid
metabolism so that lactic acid doesn’t build up for what you do, but you should not work simply for money. If you work
in your cells, and the adrenal hormone ouabain every day in a job you don’t love, then you are going to put enormous stress
helps you do that. on your adrenal glands. Eventually they will not be able to produce the
By the way, ouabain is made out of choles- cardiotonics and endorphins that you need to stay well, happy and cancer
terol; or to put it another way, ouabain is made free.
from animal fats. And since the widely used In fact, everything we do should be enjoyable—our work, our leisure
statin drugs inhibit the production of cholesterol, time, our family life, our food—yet even eating has become stressful today
they also inhibit the production of ouabain. as we are hounded to stick to a soulless lowfat diet. The threat of cancer
Here is yet another example of fear about one of should challenge us to humanize our existence, to inject the stress-free
nature’s vital processes—the use of cholesterol attitude of primitive peoples into our stressful, goal-oriented civilized
in the human body—that is so characteristic of lives.
civilized man. This is really our only choice because we can’t go back. Very few of
Fear of cholesterol and saturated fat has us would want to go back to primitive tribal life, a life without electricity,
led to a vicious cycle. Ouabain catalyzes the without gadgets, without books and computers, a life, in fact, without the
metabolism of fats, allowing you to eat them, so opportunity for personal choice that we have become used to. What we
you eat more. If you don’t eat cholesterol and fats, can do is choose to bring the village life back to civilization, by choosing
or if you try to lower your cholesterol, you can’t not to work for money, by choosing to enjoy our food, by choosing to do
make oaubain and then you can’t eat fats, and so the things we love to do, by reducing the pace, by socializing with friends,
you think you are doing better if you decrease by taking naps, by doing as much for ourselves as we do for others, by
the amount of fats in your diet. The next thing supporting old-fashioned and sustainable agriculture, and above all by
you know you have more insulin from increased eating lots and lots of animal fats.

GRAINS AND CIVILIZATION

Although I have pointed out the destructive nature of grain production—and, I should also add, of feeding grains
to ruminant animals—and of the “civilized” attitudes that lead to cancer, please don’t think that I am against grains and
against civilization. In every mythology, grains are said to be a gift of the gods. Steiner taught that grains were the gift of a
great wise man named Zarathustra, and that along with grains he gave us one other gift: the knowledge of our mortality.
With the knowledge of our mortality, we become individuals and can no longer participate in the group soul of the tribe
or village. Instead we must build a civilization as individuals, and grains make civilization possible.
All this is as it should be: we need to make our way in the world and learn to understand the world as an individual.
Along with this comes the scientific method and a rejection of anything that smacks of “intuition” or “superstition.” All
this has created a feeling of alienation and loneliness in “civilized” men and women, but again, this is part of our spiritual
evolution. Grains have played a role in moving us forward.
The challenge for any individual is to go forward on this great adventure of spiritual evolution without causing too
much suffering to ourselves or to others. In the case of grains, this means raising them in a way that does not deplete the
earth (which means cultivating grains in rotation with animal agriculture), eating them in moderation, preparing them
properly so that they don’t cause health problems, and then consuming them properly, which means with plenty of fat.
In fact, if you think of it, it would be hard to eat four tablespoons of butter alone, but very easy to eat four tablespoons
of butter on a piece of sourdough bread—the bread makes the butter go down well and the butter makes the bread go
down well.
When we are very sick with a disease of civilization—such as cancer, heart disease or arthritis—then we need to step
back to a more hunter-gatherer diet, perhaps even avoid grains altogether for a time. But the goal should be to incorporate
them into our diet, because we need grains to make spiritual progress, that is, to be healthy on all levels.
I had a patient who had many health problems and the GAPS diet helped her recover from them. But after recovery
she continued on the GAPS diet and she started to go downhill—not with the old symptoms, but she just got more and
more tired. I advised her to add more grains to her diet—soaked oatmeal and sourdough bread—and she immediately
snapped out of it. So there is a time to go off grains and a time to reintroduce them!
34 Wise Traditions WINTER 2009